EARLY AMERICAN MASONRY MATERIALS N WALLS, FLOORS AND CEILINGS NOTES ON PROTOTYPES, SOURCES, PREPARATION AND MANNER OF USE HARLEI j. MCKEE, PAIA Copyright 1971 Harley J. McKee 701 Crawford Avenue Syracuse, New York 13224 EARLY AMERICAN MASONRY MATERIALS IN WALLS, FLOORS AND CEILINGS -- notes on prototype; sources, preparation and manner of use. INTRODUCTION: ployed for structures such as dams and ele- vated roads, This deals in an tentative way with some aspects of the technology of American archi- Basic prcparat i on; Usually earth from (or tecture before c. i860. It refers to prac- near) the building site was taken. If neces- tices from early times in various parts of sary to secure the proper composition, ano- the world, which may or may not have been ther kind was admixed. Pebbles were picked familiar to builders in the area now com- out, and sometimes the (dry) earth was prising the United States, in order to ac- screened to remove pieces of other foreign quaint the reader with matters helpful to an material. Clay by itself will shrink and understanding of the subject. Properties of crack in drying; to prevent this sand and/or each material, the manner in which it was chopped straw (chaff, grass, Spanish moss) obtained, processed and used, workmen and were added. The mixture, with water added , their equipment, characteristic details, and was well worked into a uniform plastic ma s architectural effects, are considered to the by treading (men or animals), sometimes extent possible in a brief essay. This is being turned over with a shovel or hoe to based partly on personal observation and aid in the process. For rammed (pise') walls largely on published material; major sources relatively dry soil with organic (loamy) are given and the general nature of others content was preferred. is indicated. Anyone wishing to pursue this kind of documentary search must be prepared P_i_s_e__pr rammed ear th wall s ; Excavations .at to scan many pages to extract small bits of sTyaik~TPersla] and Hasunna (Mesopotamia) information, but only in this way will an show that such walls were built before ^000 adequate treatment of the subject eventually D. C. They have also been used in more re- be compiled. cent times. Experimental walls of the 20th- century, rammed into board forms by hand EARTH: (with a hard wood plunger, sometimes shod • with iron) or by pneumatic hammer, have. Soil or earth Is a material derived from the proved to be strohg. They are durable if breakup, into small particles, of rocks in covered with a moisture resistant coating the earth's crust, by erosion and, sometimes, and topped with a goodv coping or cornice. by chemical action; this may have occurred The expense of labor makes rammed earth in repeated cycles. Generally it consists walls impractical in industrialized coun- of clay, sand, or a mixture of the two, with tries, where they have rarely been employ- or without other mineral substances and or- ed for several centuries. ganic matter. Mounds of earth have been used for monuments and to support monuments C.lay_ JLum;p or irregular adobe walls were or temples; to this day earth fill is em- made by shaping the prepared earth in the hands and setting these lumps to form a The size of sundried bricks varied; the fol- wall. The Pueblo Indians in New Mexico lowing dimensions of ancient Egyptian^ units used quite irregular lumps (later they re- may give some notion of the range: 9" x 4-£» sorted to regular blocks). J. C. Loudon1 x 3"; 12" x 6» x 3"; 15" x 3" x 7"; 16" x"3» described the cob walls of Devonshire, x 6" (weighing from 7 Ibs. to 46 Ibs. , ap- England, in which the cobs (lumps) were proximately) . The last two sizes are not handled with a pitchfork and trodden into very different from that of adobe units in" place in the wall. Courses about four feet New Mexico. high were allowed to settle and dry for some time, then their surfaces were pared Mud brick were generally laid up with mud smooth, another course laid, etc. Cob mortar—the same material in a somewhat wet- walls were set up on stone or brick foun- ter state than when moulding the bricks. In dations to prevent deterioration from dry climates walls needed occasional re- ground moisture, covered with a coat of pairs to parapets and to their mud-plaster clay "plaster," and capped by a good roof coating. Where walls were built without a or coping; such walls were said to last for stone foundation extending well above grade, one or more centuries. the outer portion tended to disintegrate just above grade line, and unless periodic Mud brick (also called sundried brick and repairs were made there the walls fell over adobe) walls: Units were outward; this is typical of adobe buildings made by placing the in New Mexico. In humid climates, where prepared earth in this material was less commonly employed, a wooden, forms. As lime-sand stucco covering was given to the Seton Lloyd-describes exterior and roofs were made to overhang the process "The widely. Stone foundations were usual. brickmaker works on a prepared piece of ground, with the mix- Loudon'n Kncvclopodia oT Cottage, Villa ture stacked on a mat beside himT The Architecture. (London: 1646), § 838 ff. For a descrip- mould ... is filled,, and the surplus mud tion of clay lunps_ soc § 2443 ff. (Loudon us-.-i: this is smoothed off with the hand. The mould tern to designate blocks moulded, into r.u.'l brick.", as is then removed by handles projecting on I use the expression.) either side, and the bricks are left to In Singer, Holmyard and Hall, A History of Tocr.mlo- dry, for a period which varies according to £7 (London: 1954), Volume I, Chapter 17. the heat of* the sun. They are then turned over or tilted together for a further peri- Vitruvius, The Ten Bookn on .''.rchitoctvro, translated od." Vitruvius wrote that "Bricks should be by !•'. II. Korgan (iJovor reprint, Now York: 1Q60), in made in Spring or Autumn, so that they may Book II, Chap. Ill, 2. 4 . dry uniformly.... Bricks will be most servi- A (jood account of qncient Egyptian brickwork is £i- ceable if made two years before using; fot ven in S. Clarke and R. Engclbach, Ancient 2-ryptian they cannot dry thoroughly in less time,11-' Masonry (London: 1930). In ancient Mesopotamia mud-brick walls var- common in ancient china; lighter wooden ied from one to many feet in thickness. An framing served to reinforce earth walls in early temple at Tepe Gawra (before c. 3000) Crete and other pre-Hellenic regions. Daub had walls only one foot thick but they were and Wattle, in which reeds or twigs are reinforced by closely spaced buttresses both crudely woven into upright frames, then inside and outside. Later temples generally "plastered" with mud on both sides to form show 3! to 12s or even more. A house at Ur a wall, was a construction in northern Eur- (c. 2000 B. C.}, two stories high, had walls ope for ordinary dwellings and lesser struc- 9 1 to 3« thick1. tures at least as late as the Middle Ages. Fortification walls of earth with spaced During the Spanish Colonial period in New layers of logs (and sometimes stones) were Mexico, adobe walls for a one-story house built by the ancient Greeks and Romans in were customarily lt-6" to 2*-0" thick; In- addition to those of stone. dian walls had generally been thinner, often dangerously so . Church walls were up to ?' The Romans also used clay and small stones, in thickness. Although they were never made mixed, as a bulky infilling between more higher than 35', a safe limit for a good ad- carefully laid stone facings; this may have obe wall is about SO1-', In the mission been the prototype of their concrete. buildings of California few walls of adobe were less>,. than 3' and many were 5{ and 6! in Henri Frankfort, The Art and A_rchit_ci_-:_turc _of the An- thickness . Downing considered 12" a suffi- cient Orient (Baltimore, Mu.: il3>/r/). cient thickness for exterior x\alls of cot- 2 for partitions up to 12' long5 Bainbridge Bunting and. John P. f!or,rcn, in I-'oy/ Ms/.ico ta: Architecture, Vol. 8, :;os. 9 and 10 (oopt.-Get.1966). Door and window openings in mud-brick walls George Kubler, The Religious Architectv.ro. of _Ifcw were commonly spanned by timber lintels or . !•: o x i c o..... (C o 1 o ra d o Spring: T'-'iO;, citir.,; ten to. r-ide mud-brick arches and corbels. In, some cases by Eyre in 1955- Sj.Tn.lar toots shov,-ed tho rate of stone lintels were used. Newcomb mentioned weathering to be about one inch in 20 yoarc, but some use of burned brick in California for documentary study of buildings indicate! variable arches and relieving arches. rates of v.'ear. Xublor rives the size of an average adobe unit ar> 10" x 18" x 5" in Colonial tines; 4" x Some authors use the term pise to include 0" x 16" in modern tirr.es. mud brick and adobe, thus introducing uncer- 4 tainty as to their exact meaning. The defi- Rexford Kewconb, The Old Mission Cnurc'f..;p_ ana. Histo- ric Mouses of California '(J^i.ila'i';l.-.hi::; i'Jo;. ^dobe nition given in Larousse, however, calls for the earth to be compressed (rammed) in place, hero was so^ctirr.on mixed with o trav; .but rr.pro of con "depended urion trio natural gro/; of fine purticlos of disintegrated rock." Composite walls in which mud-brick construc- tion was reinforced or tied with reeds, reed 5 A, .